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Lake Charles (2011)

by Ed Lynskey(Favorite Author)

3.92 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1434430650 (ISBN13: 9781434430656)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Wildside Press

review 1: LAKE CHARLES by Ed Lynskey is an interesting crime noir mystery set in 1979 Lake Charles in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. It is written in first person,well written with depth and details. It is passion, corruption,police fraud,mystery,a disappearance,crime,drug dealers,suspense,family,Tennessee mountain life, with vivid characters and edge of your seat terror. You won't want to miss "Lake Charles". A great summer read that is a quick read with twists and turns. This book was received for the purpose of review from the publisher.Details can be found at Wildside Press LLc and My Book Addiction Reviews.
review 2: 'Three things were certain in my life: death, taxes and Mama Jo's one rule to say nothing of Angus Fishback under her roof.' It's a risky journey to... more scramble up a murder mystery with classical coming-of-age elements, but in his latest novel accomplished author Lynskey never steps wrong. Nineteen-year old protagonist Brendan seems a nice enough guy, a somewhat unreliable charmer in his half-baked reluctance to fully grow both up and out of drugs (yes, it's the 70s). The story jumps right into the heart of things when the reader learns that Brendan is out on bail awaiting murder trial charged with killing his girlfriend Ashleigh Sizemore, pampered daughter of the richest man in a small Tennessee town. Plucky enough to face shambles if with disbelief and muted horror, he sets off on a fishing trip, heading out to Lake Charles with his running mate Cobb and his twin sister Edna. Lynskey cleverly goes through the ritual of telling this scene of comradeship and small adolescent asides while operating in another, subtle way: of course things are going to pan out nasty. Of course Brendan cannot clear his mind, because his sister suddenly disappears. It's nice to see how the author avoids to go for effects, but lets the impact calmly come to the reader when drugs, the filth of a limited small town world and phoniness enter the picture. The story unfolds evenly paced, with great clarity, an ear for dialog and the loneliness of an adolescent who grew up fatherless and unconsciously still seems to seek a person in his life to take the place of his absent Dad. The truest scenes in the book come when Brendan, haunted by nightmares, battered by goings-on and struggling with issues of right and wrong, finds solace in the Company of Cobb's father, a Korean War veteran (Jerry Kuzawa) who has seen it all and most of the time doesn't even seem to know how tough he sounds. His hard-boiled ways work like the homeopathic remedy for Brendan's unapologetic loneliness, though their lines of dialog never overdose on sincerity and roughness. Quite the reverse, they even manage to leave room for tender truths. Ashleigh Sizemore's death works like the catalyst to rocket the story's hero into adulthood - a place far more complicated than small town Umpire, Tennessee throughout the late 70s, vividly depicted by the author of this thoroughly enjoyable, well-functioning Story. Connie Haag less

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